Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

The Jubilee VI

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Lesson: 72

Track: 72

Dictation Name: RR172AM72

Date: Early 70s

Let us worship God. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name, for the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all generations.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we give thanks unto Thee that Thou who sitteth on the circle of the Heavens and doest see the conspiracies and follies of man doest laugh. Thou doest hold them in derision, for it is Thy counsel and Thy plan that shall prevail. Fill us, oh Lord with boldness. Give us laughter in the darkest of days, at the vanity of Thine enemies. Make us joyful that the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ. By Thy Word and by Thy Spirit, empower us and bless us in Thy service. In Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is from Leviticus 25:47-55. Our subject again, for the sixth time, “The Jubilee.” Leviticus 25:47-55:

“47 And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger's family:

48 After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him:

49 Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he be able, he may redeem himself.

50 And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of a hired servant shall it be with him.

51 If there be yet many years behind, according unto them he shall give again the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for.

52 And if there remain but few years unto the year of jubilee, then he shall count with him, and according unto his years shall he give him again the price of his redemption.

53 And as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him: and the other shall not rule with rigor over him in thy sight.

54 And if he be not redeemed in these years, then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, both he, and his children with him.

55 For unto me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”

In a book written last year and published this August, 1987, David Knox Barker, in the book, Jubilee on Wall Street: An Optimistic Look at the Coming Financial Crisis gives a biblical perspective on the work on Kondratiev. Quoting from an article about the book in World Magazine, he points to the overall teaching of scripture about human nature and to specific passages about God’s provision of the Jubilee every 50 years in Old Testament times to correct imbalances. In contrast, the author of the new book notes, “the free market has no such safety valve, so it experiences a crash about every 50 years.” Since reading that article which Gary Moes gave to me, I have since read the book, and I will return to it later.

The economic perspective cited by Barker in his book is excellent and very necessary. But we must remember that the doctrine of the Jubilee is essentially theological. It sets forth the governing fact of God and of God’s Law, that God and His Law are dominant in every sphere. And economics is one of them. Thus, the understanding of the Jubilee must be economic, but it must be theological as well.

Briefly stated, we have to say there is more to any economic transaction than man’s economic planning. There is always God and His Law under and over all economic transactions. We must add also, that the Jubilee is family oriented. On the human level, the family is the basic social, governmental, religious and economic fact. And we can add more to that. The family is the basic educational fact. The Coleman Report of, of a couple of decades ago, demonstrated that it was not discrimination, nor the lack of it, nor the amount of money poured into a school district, nor any other thing that produced the best results. It was a stable family that education was most related to.

Now in Leviticus 25:47-55, we have the case of a poor Israelite who goes into servitude; bond service to a foreigner. This law governs the alien who is living within the borders of Israel and hence subject to the laws of God, as are all others living in that area. He is governed because the government of Israel must be governed (according to God’s Word) by His Law, and all nations brought under it. Therefore, the alien’s bond servants are subject to redemption, or if not redemption, then the Jubilee—irrespective of what his own laws in his home country may have been.

Now, the laws of slavery over the centuries have varied from country to country. At times, the right to own slaves, if we can call it a right, has been the privilege of the ruling peoples. Islam is one such area. As George Bush, the American commentator of many generations ago wrote, “At present, no Christian or Jew in a Mohammedan country is allowed to have as a slave (we will not say any native, but), any Mohammedan of any country. Nor indeed any other than Mohammedans, except Negros, were the only description of slaves they may possess.” Now, this is a very much-neglected fact today. And it is ironic that the black Muslims have been sold on the idea that their best friends have always been the Muslims, who’ve always insisted that the one slave people, who should be held as slaves, are the blacks.

In Leviticus 25:23, God declares “the land shall not be sold forever (or in perpetuity), for the land is mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.” Now, the Hebrew word translated as sold means a {?} into slavery. God’s earth cannot be enslaved by men. Nor can the covenant people to whom he gives the land as stewards, be enslaved in perpetuity. Thus, freedom, rest and release are basic to God’s plan for man and the earth.

Now we should note also that in Exodus 23:11, the Sabbatical Year is called the Seventh Year, and in Deuteronomy 31:10, the Year of Release. The Jubilee is called simply that in Numbers 36:4 and there is a reference to land redemption in Ruth 4:3 and following. It is presupposed in Isaiah 61:1 and following and Isaiah 5:7-10 where it is the basis for judgment. We find it also referred to in Ezekiel and in Jeremiah. It is called, in brief, when it is not referred simply to as the Seventh Year or the Year of Release; it is called the Year of Rest, or the Year of God’s Visitation. So God makes clear either there is this release and rest or there is His visitation.

In verse 55 of our text, it is very plainly stated that the covenant people are God’s servants. They therefore cannot be permanently the servants of men and must redeem themselves or be redeemed by their families as soon as possible. Paul refers to this in I Corinthians 7:23 when he says, “Ye are bought with a price. Be not ye the servants of men.” All this places an obligation on us:

First, to live debt-free as far as is possible and providentially. As God’s people, we are to be dominion men, not under dominion through debt or by any other means.

Second, we have an obligation to our family and kin. Again, it is a reference to the Jubilee Law when Paul tells us in I Timothy 5:8, “But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house (or kindred), he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.” This means that among believers, there is a responsibility to care for one another and to relieve distress and debt. This has led to family associations with treasuries to meet needs and opportunities within the family. Last year in June, we published a paper by Dr. Michael Schluter of the Jubilee Center at Cambridge dealing with these family associations. We should remember that the early Church took this very seriously. The bishop of Seville, somewhere about the 4th or 5th century was responsible for the release of 50,000 prisoners. He dedicated himself to freeing Christians who were in slavery or in captivity.

Then third, Paul’s reference to our own means fellow Christians. Therefore, it puts an obligation to create agencies to alleviate needs and to make Christians of free people.

Parker’s comments a century ago on verse 55 are especially good. And he said in part, “’For unto me the children of Israel are servants.’ This is a remarkable expression as connected with the fact that God is always reminding the children of Israel, namely, that He brought them out of the house of bondage and out of the land of Egypt. He appears to acquire His hold upon their confidence by continually reminding them that at one period of their history, they were bond men. Now He insists that the men whom He has brought into liberty have been brought only into another kind of service. This is the necessity of finite life. Every liberty is in some sense a bondage. Christians are the slaves of Christ. They are burden-bearers and yoke-carriers, specially under the supervision and sovereignty of the Son of God.” This is an important point which we have forgotten and therefore are becoming slaves. Freedom means another kind of servitude, a responsible servitude. The slave is delivered from responsibility. He has cradle-to-grave security. He has no economic worries or problems. But freedom means responsibility, and the ugliest fact about slavery is that it diminishes responsibility even as it diminishes freedom.

God declares in verse 55, and some have rendered it, the children are His inalienable possession; the children of Israel. This verse gives us an indication of the Doctrine of Eternal Security. We are His servants.

Now, justice required, according to the Law, that the redemption of a bond servant be made with full compensation to the master for the years remaining, for the years of service still left. Thus the Law in no way permits either the defrauding of the master or the abuse of the servant. As C.D. Ginsberg, one of the great Anglican commentators of the last century noted, “The authorities during the Second Temple rightly point out that this passage enjoins the Hebrew to treat the Hebrew master fairly by duly compensating and compounding for the number of years he has still to serve till Jubilee and to take no advantage of the idolater.”

Our text is an aspect of the Law of the Kinsmen Redeemer, which finds its fullest expression in Jesus Christ. As very man of very man, He is our next of kin, our kinsman redeemer. And as very God of very God, He is totally efficacious in what He does for us.

Now the Jubilee Laws gave hope to society when they were observed. The relentless concentration of land which marks decadent societies is prevented by the Jubilee Law. The family basis of society is maintained and the central responsibility for social order, government and relief is plainly delegated to the family. It’s rather tardily that now we are beginning to understand the importance of the family. In the Wall Street Journal for Monday, November 16, 1987, Karl Zinsmeister reported, “Within the past several years, it has become generally accepted that family break-down is now the primary force causing poverty in the U.S. It took twenty years of furious and bitter debate, however, for the nation to reach that common realization. The process may be said to have begun upon publication of the so-called Moynihan Report in March 18, 1965 and to have ended in January, 1986 with the airing of Bill Moyers’ CBS broadcast, ‘The Vanishing Family.’ Unfortunately, the pace of domestic decay accelerated breathtakingly during that period, especially so during the last seven years. As a result, easy solutions to our poverty and welfare problems lie far beyond reach. The major factor creating poverty in recent years has been the decline of the two-parent family.”

Now the whole of biblical Law and clearly the Jubilee Law, require a familistic society, and the failure of Christians to take God’s Law seriously is a guarantee of impotence. As an example of this sad kind of thinking, Kellogg, writing in 1899 said, “No one will pretend that the law of the Sabbatic Year or the Jubilee is binding on communities now. But it is a question for our times as to whether the basal principle regarding the relation of God to land and by necessary consequence, the right of man regarding land which is fundamental to these laws, is not in its very nature a perpetual force. Surely there is nothing in scripture to suggest that God’s ownership of the land was limited to the land of Palestine or to that land only during Israel’s occupancy of it. Instead of this, Jehovah everywhere represents Himself as having given the land to Israel and therefore by necessary implication as having a like right over it while the Canaanites were dwelling in it. Again, the purpose of God’s dealing with Egypt is said to be that Pharaoh might know the same truth—that the earth was the Lord’s. And in Psalm 24:1 it is stated as a broad truth without qualification or restriction that the earth is the Lord’s as well as that which fills it. It is true that there is no suggestion in any of these passages that the relationship of God to other property, to the earth or to the land is different from His relation to other property. But it is intended to emphasize the fact that in the use of land, as of all else, we are to regard ourselves as God’s servants and hold and use it as in trust from Him.”

Now this is a very strange statement. He begins by saying it’s out of the question that anyone should take God’s Law here seriously. Yet, he goes on to say the truth of the law has perpetual force. So what does this mean? Does man have a right through the State to formulate laws governing property to express that perpetual force? When men see their present wisdom replacing God’s so-called primitive laws, we had better be fearful.

Now, I began by referring to Barker’s Jubilee on Wall Street. Barker analyzes the Jubilee Laws economically, and he points out how anti-inflationary the jubilee system is. He doesn’t go into various aspects of God’s Law, such as the requirement for hard money by weights and measures, gold or silver, nor into various other aspects. But his analysis of biblical land use is very important, and I’ll confine myself to that. He points out that in modern economics; prices inflate until a collapse sets in because of the debt pyramid. And then a slow, painful recovery through depression ensues. Now, one of the areas of the most marked inflation is land, and remember in any and every country the major property is in land. More of the land exists than urban areas, and land always is the key index to a coming depression. Prices in land break and then in a few years, the markets collapse.

But, as Barker points out, in jubilee economics the basic wealth—land is most valuable in the first year after the Jubilee, and with each year, the lease-hold on the land, if sold is one year less in its value. It has a 49-year value immediately after the Jubilee, then 48, 47 and so on… So the price of land depreciates. Thus, an anti-inflationary pattern sets in. The price of land goes down and the basic factor in an inflationary economy doesn’t exist. Combine that with hard money. And those two factors alone militate against inflation.

As he points out, “In a jubilee system, all prices in the economy would have been controlled by having the price for the land constantly falling.” Then, Barker adds that these elements in modern economics and modern economies which lead to collapse: debt, prices and expansion, are all controlled by the jubilee system. What all this means, very briefly, is that the world of economics is not a man-made world, but a God-created, God-ordained and God-governed realm. The only thing that will work therein is the Jubilee, and the whole of God’s Law.

Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, Thy Word is truth and we rejoice that Thy truth has been given unto us. Teach us to believe and to obey Thee and day by day, by our living, by our work in economics, in education, in the family, and all things else, we may create a kingdom counter-force to the powers of Humanism and its destructive reign. Bless us to this purpose, we beseech Thee. In Christ’s name, Amen.